
Class tt2^Y 




OR THE RELATION OF THE ENGLISH COLONIAL SETTLEMENTS 

IN AMERICA TO THE GENERAL HISTORY OF 

THE CIVILIZED WORLD. 



AN ADDRESS, 

DELIVEBED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 

VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

AT RICHMOND) DECEMBER 15, 1859. 



BY GEORGE F. HOLMES, 

M 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, 

AND Gentlemen of the Virginia Historical Society : 

Without impropriety I may congratulate you on the re-union 
of this evening. It must be gratifying to every liberal mind 
to witness and assist in each successive repetition of these 
annual celebrations, in which so much of the aspiring talent, 
of the matured intelligence, of the active energy, and of the 
acknowledged culture of the Ancient Dominion of Virginia, 
is brought together by the attraction derived from the com- 
mon memories of the past, and is melted into harmony by the 
animation springing from the common hopes of the future. 
Yoa meet for the purpose of retrieving or reviving the dim 
and obliterated traditions of the earlier day ; of commemora- 
ting the achievements in Council and in battle-field, — in pub- 
lic service and in private enterprise, by which, in the short 
space of two centuries and a half, the little company, which 
attended Newport, and Gosnold, and Smith to the shores of 
the Chesapeake, has expanded into the great, the intelligent, 
the wealthy, and the well-peopled State of Virginia; and has 
been multiplied by continual accretions from without, and by 
vigorous internal development, into a vast and powerful con- 
federation of free, sovereign and independent States, spread- 
ing across the wide continent from ocean to ocean, and from 
the reign of Northern frost to the realm of tropical heat and 
luxuriance. 

Of this great arch, Virginia is 'the key-stone ; and your 
3 



22 ADDRESS. 



Historical Society, in its annual assemblages, resuscitates all 
the ideas, and sentiments, and reminiscences, which are impli- 
cated and embodied in the life and destiny of the United 
States. 

Thus, the design of your meeting — the objects of your 
Society — the constituents of your eminent body — the feelings 
and the reflections which accompany you here — the diversity 
of the regions from which so many representatives of the 
widely diffused Virginian name have converged to this point, 
and for this occasion ; — the remembrance of the distinguished 
gentlemen, who have illustrated previous celebrations by their 
instructive or brilliant addresses; and, in an especial manner, 
the recollection that, in addressing myself to you, Mr. Presi; 
dent, I necessarily recall to the minds of all who hear me the 
eminent and successful labors by which you have adorned your 
retirement, and have added the graces of literature, and the 
prizes of history and biography, to the eminent renown pre- 
viously won, by services rendered to your State and to your 
whole country, at home and abroad; — all these various influ- 
ences operate in concert to add interest to these recurring 
assemblages, and to provoke a spontaneous expression of rever- 
ential admiration for the lofty and generous aims implied in 
these honorable anniversaries. 

But, gentlemen, if I may appropriately felicitate you on 
these auspicious and suggestive associations, I must the more 
particularly, on this account, return my cordial thanks to you, 
and especially to the Members of your Executive Committee, 
for the honor of my appointment to deliver the customary 
address- this evening. 

Your liberality and confidence are exemplified, but my embar- 
rassment is augmented, by the consideration that I have been 
invited, notwithstanding my English origin, to address, a Vir- 
ginia audience, and the Virginia Historical Society, on topics 
necessarily connected with the History of Virginia. You will 



ADDRESS. 23 



pardon the affection which I still entertain for the home of 
my childhood, remembering that, in many instances, your 
own lineage is drawn from the same abundant fountain of 
modern freedom ; — and recollecting that the Old Dominion of 
Virginia was the first scion transferred from that venerable 
stock to the rich, prolific and virgin soil of the New World. 
The tenacity of our adherence to early loves,* and friendships, 
and obligations, and to tUe friends of our fathers before us, 
is the surest pledge of the stability and sincerity of our ma- 
turer attachments. 

You would not ask me, then, to dwell upon the praises 
even of Virginia, when her splendor shines by the eclipse of 
|he more ancient glories of the Mother-land. There are pas- 
sages in English History, and in the narrative of England's 
connection with her Colonies, which her patriotic children, at 
home and abroad, and the descendants of her children to the 
latest generation, can regard only with fruitless regret, and 
mortifying condemnation. These faults demand considera- 
tion, but they may be more fitly exposed by others. Rather 
permit me to select, from the copious array of topics before 
me, one which may do honor to Virginia, as the eldest born 
of the American sisterhood, without diminishing the fair fame 
of England, or obscuring the services which, intentionally or 
instructively, by deliberate policy, or by inevitable develop- 
ment of inherent tendencies in herself, and in her offspring, 
she has rendered to human liberty and progress. With this 
aim, I shall attempt to combine the glories of England and of 
Virginia in one view, and I may succeed in enlarging the 
appreciation of both by the union. 

It is a prevalent habit ^with the American people to con- 
template American History — American Society — American 
Institutions — the past career, the present condition, and the 
future destinies of the separate and of the aggregate States — 
in ' too insular' a manner, as if they were entirely estranged 



24 ADDRESS. 



from the general order of human affairs. The Roman Poet 
of the Augustan Age spoke of the contemporaneous inhabi- 
tants of the British Isles as a race dissevered from the whole 
•world — toto divisos orhe Britannos. We, on this side of the 
Atlantic, have appropriated to ourselves in our habitual speech, 
the sneer at our barbarous ancestors, uttered by their con- 
querors nearly twenty centuries ago. It is a narrow and mis- 
taken policy, though explained and excused by the hostile or 
jealous relations in which this country has been placed during 
critical times with regard to Great Britain and the political 
systems of Continental Europe. But, by thus contracting 
the field of view, we deliberately exclude the abundant illu- 
mination which would otherwise stream in from antecedent, 
times, and from the surrounding world. Moreover, we are 
thus constrained to disregard the innumerable cords which 
unite into one grand harmony 'the Federation of the Nations;' 
and to ignore the continual play of those currents of action 
and re-action which bind together the complicated phenomena 
of social change, producing that august but unstable equi- 
librium in the life of the world, which, like the great Ocean, 
exhibits incessant movement and alternation, without ever 
transcending the bounds that maintain its essential unity and 
identity. By contemplating the phases of American exist- 
ence, as if it were sustained and animated by forces distinct 
from the general impulses of humanity, we are precluded 
from the full comprehension even of those events which seem 
to appertain peculiarly and exclusively to this side of the 
Atlantic. The mission of the United States will be better 
understood, and more worthily appreciated, if regarded as 
constituting a main link in the chain of human evolution — as 
presenting one of the latest and grandest acts of the porten- 
tous tragedy of man's action in the world — than if it be 
treated as an anomaly — as an episode — or as a brilliant and 



ADDRESS. 25 

meteoric digression from the regular destiuies of the human 
race. 

The time, too, seems to urge upon us a recourse to these 
broader views. The bright morning of American greatness 
is shrouded with ominous gloom. The extended Union, which 
has been the pride, the glory, the security and the power of 
the American people is threatened with violent disruption. 
A world-wide fanaticism, of no limited or transient origin — 
. the creature of political ignorance, of religious bigotry, of sec- 
tional jealousy and of the frenzy of innovation — has at length 
broken out into acts of treasonable discord and fraternal blood- 
shed, after having long fostered local and party animosities. 
The air is darkened around us with spectral shapes of terror. 
Before the storm bursts in its full fury, if burst it must — be- 
fore the ruin is achieved, if the mighty fabric must be shat- 
tered ; — it is wise to inquire by what visible and invisible 
agencies the vast structure had been reared and cemented, and 
to learn what were its relations to the general economy of the 
nations in its origin, its growth, and its maturity ; — what were 
the harmonies prevailing between its vibrations and the move- 
ments of the rest of mankind. It would be well to recognize 
that secret of fate — that arcanum imperii — which has im- 
pelled and cherished the progress of our country, but which, 
like the water of crystallization, may be beyond the reach of 
scientific analysis, until the brilliant gem which enclosed it 
has been crushed into fragments. It is also incumbent upon 
us at this time to ascertain the extent to which the liberties 
the prosperity, and the independence of the separate States 
are implicated with their combination; — and how far in their 
prosperity and persistent connection are involved the mainte- 
nance of freedom in the world, the expansion of civilization, 
and the diffusion of morals, intelligence and religion. Thus 
may be discovered the immense and increasing services which 
the American polity was calculated to render, and the ultimate 
4 



26 ADDRESS. 



tendencies of that brightening and broadening career whicli 
lay invitingly before its path. 

To minister to the formation of such ampler views, and, as 
far as may be, to mingle instruction and gratification with the 
occupations of the hour, I have ventured to approach a sub- 
ject too vast for my information, my abilities, my opportuni- 
ties, and my time. I invite you, then, to accompany me with 
your indulgent favor while I discuss rapidly, and therefore, if 
on no other account, imperfectly, the Virginia Colony, or the 
relations of English Colonization in America to the contempo- 
raneous and antecedent History of the Civilized World. 

It would scarcely have happened by the mere caprice of 
fortune that most of the eminent names of the Elizabethan 
era, still surviving during the first years of the reign of 
James, should have been united in the Patents by which the 
germ of the English Colonies in America was planted and 
preserved at Jamestown. Still less could it have been an 
accident that Lord Bacon, besides being a member of the 
Corporation and of the Council of the London Company, 
should have impressed his views and policy upon the organi- 
zation of the infant settlement; and should- have written his 
Essay on Plantations almost as a commentary upon the early 
fortunes of Virginia. Nor will it satisfy an intelligent curi- 
osity to ascribe to chance the remarkable convergence to the 
shores of North America, about that time, of the brilliant 
hopes and adventurous emprise of the brightest and most 
chivalrous spirits of the chivalric court of Elizabeth. There 
must have been some potent and pervasive enchantment 
springing from the united, though impalpable, agencies of 
the miraculous past, and of the teeming present, to concen- 
trate, coincidently or successively, in one common purpose 
of hazard, difficulty and expense, so many shining spirits and 
martial heroes, and sagacious or astute statesmen, as Sir 
Philip Sydney, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, 



ADDRESS. 27 



Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Francis Bacon, and his intriguing 
cousin, the Earl of Salisbury, Capt. John Smith, Sir Thomas 
Smith, Percy, and Lord Delaware. An explanation is re- 
quired for this sudden convocation of gallant soldiers, and 
grave councillors, and learned lawyers, and profound sages, 
and prudent financiers, and calculating merchants, and cau- 
tious capitalists, by the cradle of the nascent and infant Vir- 
ginia. No other community has ever been illustrated at its 
birth by such a galaxy of resplendent names. Never did 
dreaming astrologer venture to cast such a horoscope of con- 
junctive and auspicious stars for the nativity of potentate or 
empire. Never did Royal Highness or Imperial Prince re- 
ceive the honor of such an array of noble and distinguished 
sponsors. Not only did civil prudence, and military renown, 
and reviving philosophy, and commercial adventure, send 
notable representatives, but Literature, with all the return- 
ing Arts and Sciences, participated in the ceremonial of the 
earliest English colonization ; and the Maiden Queen herself 
hailed its budding promise by imposing upon it the name 
"whicli her fancy had chosen to be her own. The Poet, San- 
dys, whose brother had been the pupil of the venerable and 
judicious Hooker ; Coke, the greatest of Black-letter lawyers, 
and the rudest, but one of the sturdiest champioos of English 
Liberty ; Harriott, the mathematician, and anticipator of Des 
Cartes ; Hakluyt, the faithful conservator of commercial ex- 
plorations and geographical discoveries; Drake, the herald, 
and, in great measure, the founder of Britain's "Empire of 
the Seas ; " these, and many others, of scarcely inferior re- 
pute in their day and generation, shared in the various efforts 
to establish an English Colony near the waters of the Chesa- 
peake. They seemed to promise, by their arrival on the soil 
of Virginia, or by their connection with its settlement, that 
the various culture of England, her freedom, her society, and 
her policy, should be transferred to a new land, and cherished 



28 ADDRESS. 



into more vigorous and unrestrained development by the more 
favoring clime, the more fertile soil, and the wider domain of 
the late-won Hesperides : 

Certus enim promisit Apollo 
Antiqaam tellure nova Salamina futuram. 

The immediate results of this amazing conjunction of tal- 
ents and energies were trivial indeed. But, in the weakness 
or failure of the first efforts, bright auguries and brilliant 
memories were left behind, which revealed the extent and the 
intensity of the hidden impulses that had simultaneously 
directed the anxious hopes of the multitude to the land of 
promise beyond the setting sun. 

So far was the settlement of Virginia, or the concurrence 
of so much hardihood and genius in its settlement, from being 
accidental, that they may be most manifestly proved to have 
been " the long result of time," and the natural maturity of 
all the previous tendencies of European progress. '' Time, 
"with his retinue of ages," hovered over the Capes of the 
Chesapeake, asking in those years the heritage of the goodly 
land for his English progeny. The subsequent battles, con- 
tentions, and revolutions of Europe, evince that the fulcrum 
on which plays the lever of the world thenceforward moved 
by a gradual procession along the habitual line of Empire to 
the Western Continent. The fortunes and the destinies of 
the great monarchies were from that day bound up, more and 
more intimately, with the progress of the American Colonies. 
Even the retardations and the obstructions to colonization — 
the frustration of Raleigh's sagacious enterprises, and their 
final abandonment by him — the unavenged sacrifice of White's 
colony at Roanoke — were indissolubly connected with great 
national transactions, with the long maritime warfare, un- 
heralded and unsparing, between England and Spain — be- 
tween freedom in politics, and religion, and action, and 



ADDRESS. 29 



thought, and despotism in all — and with the arrogant menace 
and ruinous overthrow of Philip's ^' Invincible Armada/^ 

No permanent foothold in America was secured by the Eng- 
lish until the 10th day of June, 1610. The discoveries of John 
and Sebastian Cabot in the reign of Henry VII.— the explora- 
tions of the Dominus Yobiscum, the Trinity, and the Union, 
in the reign of Henry YIII. — the arctic voyages of Frobisher 
under Elizabeth — had only increased geographical knowledge, 
encouraged the English fisheries at Newfoundland, and dis- 
played the inclination of England to disregard the Papal par- 
tition of the undiscovered lands of the Ocean between the 
Crowns of Spain and Portugal. The intelligence and heroism 
of Gilbert — the large sagacity, the untiring energy, and the 
lavish, expenditures of Ealeigh — the chivalry of Grenville — 
the gallantry and wisdom of Smith — had published the vir- 
tues of these several commanders, and proved how arduous is 
the task of sowing and cultivating the seeds of society. But 
all their labors, and daring, and outlays had failed to secure 
the establishment of the Colony for which the enthusiasm of 
themselves and their countrymen had been so deeply excited. 
There had been changes, and enlargements, and assignments, 
and forfeitures of Patents. ' Charters had been modified, and 
expanded, and divided. Large companies of wealthy, power- 
ful, and illustrious men had combined to achieve a task too 
onerous for the matchless energy and abilities of Raleigh. 
Yet, after all these changes and renewed efi'orts, the English 
tenure of Virginia continued to be transitory or precarious. 

The uninterrupted and determined occupation of the Ame- 
rican soil dates only from Sunday, the 10th of June, 1610. 
On that day was commenced, with solemn, but resolute feel- 
ings, the restoration of the solitary hamlet possessed by the 
English in America, which had been abandoned with indig- 
nant despair three days before, after a troubled occupation of 
three tedious and eventful years. 



30 ADDRESS. 



Gaunt with famine; reduced in numbers by desertion, dis- 
ease, and death ; worn down with the long agony of hope 
deferred and hopes disappointed, having experienced new 
disasters with almost every fresh effort; oppressed even by 
the recent tardy and tempest-tost addition to their famishing 
community, overwhelmed with despondency, and sick of their 
hard exile, — the colonists resolved to cease their fruitless 
exertions, and to renounce all that the unimagined destinies 
reserved for their enterprise and their race. They fled from 
the scene of their trials and their afflictions, trusting them- 
selves in crazy and rotten vessels to the mercy of those waves 
from which most of 'them had so lately escaped. They 
tempted the Ocean once more, with provisions barely suffi- 
cient for a brief voyage, but with the dreary and fainting 
expectation of obtaining the requisite supplies for their home- 
ward journey from the fishing vessels which frequented the 
banks of Newfoundland. 

Such was the prospective issue of the Colony at James- 
town ! Such the result of the '' The Starving Time in Vir- 
ginia 1" The calamitous experience of the Spanish, Portu- 
guese, and French settlements, and of the failures of Sir 
Walter Raleigh at Roanoke, was renewed. This abandon- 
ment of Jamestown probably suggested to Lord Bacon the 
impressive remark : *' It is the sinfullest thing in the world 
to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness; for, 
besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many 
commendable persons." 

In the previous year, Capt. John Smith had been com- 
pelled by a frightful accident to return to England for medi- 
cal advice. Nearly five hundred persons received his farewell. 
Only sixty remained when Newport, and Gates, and Somers 
arrived from the Bermudas with one hundred and fifty re- 
cruits. These three chiefs, preceding Lord Delaware, the 



ADDRESS. 31 



Governor appointed under the last Charter, had been wrecked 
in the same vessel, amid the 

Breadths of tropic shade, and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise, 

that adorn those Islands of Faerie, which received from one 
of these adventurers the name of the Somer Isles, and fur- 
nished to Shakspeare the original of ^' the still-vexed Ber- 
moothes," peopled with the enchantments of Prospero, the 
love and innocence of Miranda, and the ideal graces of Ariel. 

Nearly a year after their departure from England, the ship- 
wrecked manners arrived, with their commanders, at James- 
town, in two frail vessels of their own construction. Their 
numbers threatened only to increase the distress which their 
scanty stores could not long alleviate. All agreed to forsake 
the hapless country, as Lane's Colony had deserted Roanoke 
on the arrival of Drake, a quarter of a century before. 
Heavy, indeed, must have been the hearts of the settlers 
during the painful months preceding and necessitating this 
determination. These may have been occasioned or aggra- 
vated by improvidence, insubordination and vicious conduct; 
but the misery was not the less real, and the crisis of fate 
was not the less portentous, because they had provoked their 
own wretchedness. 

A few hungry and half-clothed men, the relics of a large 
emigration; in the midst of the wilderness; surrounded by 
the forest and its savage occupants; without coherence among 
themselves ; without the solace of woman's presence, or the 
charm of childish pranks and prattle; cut off from their 
country and their countrymen ; removed by hundreds of 
desert miles from the nearest European settlers, in whom 
they would have recognized only enemies; with the wild 
waste of waters between them and their native land; with 
the unexplored immensity of 'the gloomy horror of the 
woods' towards the setting sun; without longer dream of 



32 ADDRESS. 



advantage to themselves — without amusement — without ac- 
ceptable occupation for either mind or hand — without social 
order — without security — without hope of relief — without 
prospect of happiness or even tolerable misery — without ade- 
quate sustenance, or any imaginable encouragement — without 
health, or strength, or anticipation of continued life ; they 
might well repudiate the interests of their native land, not 
yet comprehended by her sages; the demands of their 
creed, still associated with intolerant hostilities 3 and ignore 
everything else in the consciousness of their overpowering 
calamities. 

The seed of Empire had been sown on the soil of Virginia 
by English enterprise, and English hands. It had put forth 
some struggling roots, but the plant. had withered by neglect, 
mismanagement, misconduct and misfortune. The work of 
heroes and of sages was apparently destroyed. The hopes of 
England, and the promise of American liberty were once 
more afloat, returning on the current of the Powhatan, unful- 
filled, and to prevent or delay future fulfillment. It was the 
critical hour of modern destinies. But the will of Providence 
was more propitious than the deliberations of men. The 
fugitives were arrested near the mouth of the river by Lord 
Delaware, who had at length arrived with re-inforcements and 
abundant supplies. They returned to their recently aban- 
doned home; and, on the morrow, the 10th of June, they 
resumed, with prayer and thanksgiving, and earnest augury, 
the solemn task of laying the small foundations of a mighty 
Empire. 

"It is," said they, "the arm of the Lord of Hosts, who 
would have his people pass the Red Sea and the wilderness, 
and then possess the land of Canaan." 

" Doubt not," they proclaimed to the people of England, 
" God will raise our State, and build his Church in this 
excellent clime." 



ADDRESS. 83 



Could any tbaumaturgic art have enabled Lord Delaware, 
or his fellow-workers, to look 

into the Future, far as human eye could see ; 

and have presented to him, or to them, 

The Vision of the World, and all the Wonder that should be ; 

what energy, what enthusiasm, what exultation, what sublime 
resolution, and what lofty endeavor, would have been inspired 
by the magnificent revelation ! The prescience, so accorded, 
might have extended beyond the clouds which now darken 
our horizon, and have reached to the contemplation of a vaster 
and still more prosperous confederation than has yet been 
imagined, beneath skies once more serene. The Koyal Pro- 
cession of Banquo's unborn heirs, closed by the then reign- 
ing monarch, James I. with the two-fold balls, and treble 
sceptre, borne by him as King of England, Scotland and 
Ireland, could not have afi"orded a more dazzling anticipation 
of future glory, than would have been seen issuing from the 
settlement of the first English Colony in America, under the 
auspices of the same King. Nor would the vision of Koman 
triumphs and the Imperial dominion of Rome, unveiled to 
the gaze of ^neas in the Elysian Fields, have revealed a 
scene of brighter promise for the human flimily, than would 
have been displayed in the boundless perspective, had any 
magic ointment unsealed the eyes of Lord Delaware, or any 
fond Anchises, or guiding Sibyl, pointed to Virginia, and her 
direct or collateral posterity, saying, 

hanc adspice gentem 
Romanosque tuos. 

It was only the inauguration of the grand phantasmagoria 
which was unrolled before the admiring view of Lord 



34 ADDRESS. 



Batburst, and immortalized by tbe oratory of Burke, wbieh 
it inspired. 

If such provision was denied to tbe actors and contempo- 
raries of tbat significant, tbougb obscure ceremonial, tbe 
restoration of Jamestown, we may transport ourselves in 
imagination to the scene, with all the knowledge tbat tbe 
acbieveraents of generations have furnished, with all tbe illus- 
tration from anterior events tbat tbe more diligent and com- 
prehensive study of history has supplied. Tbat point of 
time and of space when despair was transmitted into per- 
sistent and successful endeavor, when English colonization 
was first assured, affords an appropriate ^' specular mount," 
from which to discern the agencies in tbe foretime, wbich 
received form, expression, and realization by tbat act and its 
consequences; and to detect its results in the ensuing gen- 
erations, in the Continent on which it was enacted, and the 
Continent whence the impulse and the actors were derived. 

The occasion may be deemed too sHgbt to be made tbe 
symbol of such wide disturbance. The commencements of 
great political mutations are almost invariably trivial in ap- 
pearance, often even contemptible. ''The cloud as of the 
bigness of a man's hand" may be tbe herald of tempests 
wbich will involve tbe Heavens in universal tumult, and deso- 
late extensive kingdoms. Consider the grain of mustard seed. 
It is not tbe magnitude of the occurrence, but tbe amount of 
antecedent preparation which it implies, and tbe cbaracter or 
range of its effects, wbich constitutes tbe importance of any 
historical transaction. The Virginia Colony was tbe summa- 
tion of anterior tendencies, the germination of a new system — 
of a new process of the ages, and as such cannot be over- 
rated. 

In tbe tombs of the pristine inbabitants of the American 
Continent, a race extinct before tbis New World was disco- 
vered by Columbus, relics have been found suggesting the 



ADDRESS. 



35 



presence of the arts and knowledge, the culture and the 
creeds, of all the more notable populations of antiquity, 
Chinese and Hindoos, Egyptians and Phoenicians, Jews .and 
Etruscans, Greeks and Celts, Thibetans, Tartars, and other 
Mongolian races, are represented by the buried remains scat- 
tered over the land from the mediterranean seas of the North 
to the broad waters of the La Plata in the South. These 
strange, and scarcely appreciated evidences of the almost in- 
comprehensible connection of the primitive occupants of Ame^ 
rica with the various peoples of the elder world, present an 
anticipation and prototype of what may be observed in her 
more recent history. All the civilized nations of the modern 
world have contributed, in diverse modejv, their blood, tlieir 
enterprise, their treasure, their learning, their experience; 
their invention, their manners, and their civility, to be fused 
into a new and all-embracing harmony beneath the Western 
skies. They have thus produced a universal amalgam, which, 
if the concoction proceed to perfection, may be, like the cele- 
brated Corinthian brass, more precious than the aggregate of 
its constituent elements. All the currents of previous, and 
especially of modern progress, ran together in the Virginia 
Colony, and flowed onward to her younger sister : and James- 
town, at the moment of its renovation, marks the point, in 
space and time, where the grand conflux of the waters took 

place. 

Isolated and anomalous as the phenomena of our political 
and social organization appear in the popular conception of 
them, no part of the continuous process of historical develop- 
ment is more rigidly and minutely the result of the silent 
laws of human progress, or more certainly the product of 
numerous antecedent catenations of inter-dependent causes. 
Even the discovery of America, at the time of its occurrence, 
was no fortuitous, or unprepared event. In the days when 



36 ADDRESS. 



the successful daring of Columbus broke like a revelation 
over Europe, his magnificent conquest from the unknown was 
a natural birth of the time, as his bold emprise and previous 
bold conviction were the offspring of preceding circumstances 
and conjectures, as well as of his own assiduous investigations 
and patient inductions. 

The whole life of Columbus, his studies, his aspirations, 
his earlj career, his perseverance and pertinacity, exhibited 
the operation of the pervading influences of the Fifteenth 
Century upon a mind of singular genius and resolution. He 
lived in an age of amazing maritime adventure and intense 
commercial expectation. To recognize how largely his en- 
terprise was due to prevalent tendencies, it is sufficient to 
peruse the remarkable exposition by the son of the motives 
which induced the father to attempt his hazardous exploration 
of the unmeasured Ocean. In that memorable statement no- 
thing is more remarkable than the letter of the Florentine 
astronomer, Paul Toscanelli, which is declared to have been 
one of the main causes of the undertaking. This epistle was 
a repetition of a previous communication addressed by the 
same scientific Italian to Fernandez Martinez, of Lisbon, who 
was then engaged in similar inquiries. In this letter occur 
the geographical misapprehensions and miscalculations which 
deceived the contemporaries of Columbus and himself, but 
which constituted, in consequence of that deception, import- 
ant elements of his success. Here, too, are the customary 
allusions to the distant explorations of Marco Polo, and of 
other travellers, who, during or after the Crusades, and actu- 
ated by impulses derived from them, had penetrated into the 
remote and hitherto unknown regions of Eastern Asia. This 
letter was written at Florence, on the 25th of June, 1474, 
eighteen years before Columbus sailed from the port of Palos 
to explore the bounds of the undefined Atlantic. 



ADDRESS. 37 



In a second letter, indeed, the date of wbicli I have not 
been able to determine, Toscanelli writes to his illustrious 
correspondent : 

''I am delighted that you have fully comprehended my 
demonstration, and that this voyage is no longer a mere pos- 
sibility, but is henceforward certain and real ; for its accom- 
plishment would be an incalculable benefit, and an immense 
glory in the estimation of all Christendom/' 

Amongst other motives by which Columbus was stimulated 
in his great undertaking, according to the same indisputable 
authority, reference is made to the prophecy of Seneca, to the 
conjectures of Aristotle, or the Pseudo-Aristotle, to Ptolemy, 
Strabo, Pliny, Marinus, Averroes, Alfergani, Marco Polo, Sir 
John Mandeville, Peter d'Ailly, and others who had visited 
strange regions, or had speculated on the shape of the earth, 
and on the distribution of its lands and waters. 

All the nascent science, all the accumulated learning, the 
recent and the earlier observation and experience of Europe, 
in an age of peculiar intellectual energy, and of singular 
activity by sea and laud, concentrated their illumination upon 
this point. The transcendant merit of Columbus consisted in 
his susceptibility to the spirit and tendencies of the period; 
in his collection, collation and appreciation of the abundant 
and luminous evidence; in his firm conviction, and in the 
unequalled sagacity and resolution which dared to act upon 
that conviction in the face of sneers, indifi'erence, neglect, of 
unfathomable doubts and inconceivable dangers. The great 
man is not he who places himself at variance with the spirit 
of his age, but he who most thoroughly and intelligently 
accepts it, and is thereby enabled to render himself its most 
complete, and consequently its most potent and most novel 
realization. 

In a more elaborate and detailed review of the concatena- 
tion of the great movements which attained their ultimate 
5 



38 ADDRESS. 



accomplishment in the English settlements in America, it 
would be interesting to show how the' enthusiastic pursuit of 
maritime discovery by the Portuguese, and the heroic, but 
sanguinary daring of the Spanish Conquerors, gradually . 
sprung out of the Crusades; — and how, from the Crusades, 
concurrently with other causes which they encouraged or 
modified, arose also the commercial changes, the commercial 
necessities, and the commercial aspiration?, which inflamed 
the minds of men in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, and 
produced the notable achievements of modern industry, litera- 
ture, science, philosophy and civilization. The grand events 
of human history form parts of a single chain, though the 
separate links sometimes seem so trivial that their importance 
is overlooked till the whole series is regarded in its continuity. 
The midnight aspect of the starry heavens presents to the 
aninstructed gaze only dazzling perplexity and inextricable 
confusion. In the shining hieroglyphics traced by those 
countless orbs, the purged eye of science discerns the rule 
of eternal law, and order, immutable, though inexplicable, 
throughout the fathomless abysses of the sky. The moral pro- 
cesses of humanity are even more intricate and mysterious, 
but they, too, are obsequious to the same providential govern- 
ance, which conjoins them into one harmonious, but incom- 
prehensible scheme. What the poet declared in regard to 
'the plastic powers and processes which mould the individual 
man, is equally applicable to the genesis and evolution of 
historical change : 

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows 
Like harmony in music ; there is a dark 
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles 
Discordant elements, makes them cling together 
la one society. 

The New World won from the Ocean — the late realization 
of Plato's dream of Atlantis, and of the dim tradition of 



ADDRESS. 39 

Antilia — was to become the heritage of the nations. It was 
first to be the prize of their rivalries and contentions. The 
elements of European culture were to be developed here, free 
from the antiquated restrictions transmitted from the past. 
The populations of Europe able to participate in the prospec- 
tive fusion were to be introduced into America, and to display 
their capacity or incompetency to achieve the task prescribed 
by destiny. Spain, and Portugal, and France made trial of 
their skill : but the experiment failed in their hands. The 
winner of the race, the child of the world's promise and of 
the world's hopes, was almost the last of the competitors to 
enter upon the course. It was an accident, however, which 
perhaps prevented the discovery of the New Continent under 
the auspices of England. 

The capture of Bartholomew Columbus by pirates, on his 
mission to offer his brother's services to the English monarch; 
the opportune conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Grenada, 
and the sagacity, ambition, piety, or cupidity of Queen Isa- 
bella, secured for Spain the honor of adding another Continent 
to the habitable earth. But it is still necessary to explain the 
long retardation of English adventure in the Western Hemis- 
phere, which is rendered stranger by the fact that the main 
land of North America was actually visited by Cabot, sailing 
under the flag of Henry YIL before it had been seen by Co- 
lumbus. This explanation will reveal much of the recondite 
significance and opportunity of the Virginia Colony, and will 
introduce us into the heart of the tangled policy, the great 
antagonistic tendencies, and the social perturbations, out of 
which arose the English settlements in America. 

On the application of Don Henry of Portugal, Eugenius 
IV., by a papal bull conceded to that crown, '■ an exclusive 
right to all countries which the Portugese should discover 
from Cape Non to the Continent of India.' In consequence 
of the discoveries of Columbus, this grant was modified by the 



40 ADDRESS. 



infamous Alexander VI. and the whole of the unknown world, 
to the east and to the west of an imaginary line, was divided 
unintelligently between Spain and Portugal. Both conces- 
sions were united in the Spanish Crown, when the Duke of 
Alva, the executioner of the Netherlands, subjugated Portu- 
gal; and when Philip II. added, in 1580, the crowns of Por- 
tugal and both the Indies to the almost universal empire of 
Charles V. The date is important ; for Queen Elizabeth's 
patent to Sir Humphrey Gilbert was issued only two years 
before, and the patent to Sir Walter Raleigh only four years 
after this vast monopoly of the regions of colonial enterprise 
had been eflfectuated. 

France, indeed, while waging war on the Flemish frontier 
and in Italy, had disregarded the pontificial donations in the 
same spirit in which she had sought and received the alliance 
of the Turks. England had also timidly manifested a dispo- 
sition on some occasions to secure a foothold in the New 
World. But the obligatory force of the prohibition to all 
strangers to interfere with the inheritance of the Spanish and 
Portuguese sovereigns, was operative in England, and was 
effectually asserted in the reign of Edward IV. with regard to 
the trade of the Guinea Coast. This proscription continued 
to operate until the throne of Elizabeth was indissolubly con- 
nected with the political success of the Reformation, and a 
war between England and Spain had become a prospective 
certainty. Thus the chief event of modern centuries, the dis" 
location of temporal and ecclesiastical authority, and the change 
of political systems and religious creeds by the Reformation 
of Luther, was an important and even necessary preliminary 
to the establishment of an English Colony in Virginia. The 
nativity of our ancient metropolis was heralded and prepared 
by memorable events : and the mighty omens which preceded 
its foundation were fair auguries of the vast consequences to 
humanity, in the near or the distant future, to be anticipated 



ADDRESS. 41 



from the first English settlement — the first ofi"shoot of English 
freedom in America. 

The papal prohibition might have failed to produce such 
unaccustomed abstinence on the part of the English during 
the century of Portuguese and Spanish discovery, and the fol- 
lowing century of Portuguese, Spanish and French appropria^ 
tion, if the political and social condition of England had not 
tended concurrently to the same result. 

In the last year of the fourteenth century the throne of 
England was usurped by Henry lY., and the crown transfer- 
red to ' the aspiring blood of Lancaster.' Thus the century 
of maritime discovery was in England ushered in by the 
commencement of the long discord which desolated the land, 
destroyed its resources, despoiled its cities, and sacrificed its 
people. Kachel, weeping for her children, could not exchange 
her ravaged home for distant wanderings. War with Scot- 
land — the persecution of the Lollards — the victory of Agin- 
court, — and the acquisition of the French Crown, occupied the 
first quarter of the century. But the premature death of 
Henry V. — the infancy and the idiocy of his ill-fated son — 
the rivalries and the intrigues of the Royal Dukes and other 
great nobles — precipitated the expulsion of the English from 
France under the patriotic impulse communicated by the 
heroic exaltation of Joan of Arc. The ruinous wars of the 
Roses ensued — the long contention between the houses of 
York and Lancaster — not terminated by the Battle of Bos- 
worth, and scarcely concluded by the astute policy and cool 
tyranny of Henry YII. and the princes of the Tudor line. 
During such long continued agitations, industry and com- 
merce, and maritime adventure, could not experience the ge- 
nial gales which were speeding Portugal and Spain to their 
glorious discoveries in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. 
In England, the energies of the people and their resources 
had been wasted, the political constitution had been widely 



42 ADDRESS. 



shaken, and the social fabric seemed to be shivered from the 
crown to the base. Society and government demanded recon- 
struction and the animation of a new spirit, before the period 
of English expansion and triumph could be inaugurated. 

This process of renovation was fortunately reserved for the 
sixteenth century — the era of Spanish and Portuguese con- 
quest, occupation and colonization — though it was only inef- 
fectually and transitorily accomplished even then. The con- 
quests of Cortez and Pizarro, and Albuquerque were achieved — 
the mines of Mexico and Peru, and ^ the wealth of Ormuz 
and of Ind ' had been won — the Araucana of Ercilla y Zu- 
niga, and the Lusiad of Camoens had been written — before 
England dreamt of oceanic or trans-oceanic empire. The 
accession of the youthful, splendid, accomplished and ambi. 
tious monarch, Henry VIII., might have promised an early 
completion of the tendency to political and social reorganiza. 
tion, and to external development. But, instead of wisely 
prosecuting the silent offices of peace, he preferred to blaze 
among the illustrious sovereigns of that memorable time; — to 
outshine Francis of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold ; 
and to rival Francis, and Charles V., and Leo X., and Soley- 
man, the Magnificent, on the troubled arena of European pol- 
itics. His futile intervention in the controversies of the Con- 
tinent; his endeavor to balance the scales between Francis 
and Charles; his adoption and assertion of the Reformation 
on matrimonial grounds; his dissolution of the monasteries, 
and appropriation of their revenues for financial and political 
considerations; his fluctuating and capricious regulation of 
the creed of his subjects by fire, gibbet and prison; exacer- 
bated the social agitation, and diverted his attention, and the 
enterprise of his people, from any efi"cctual attempt to partici- 
pate in the new treasures of the Eastern and Western worlds. 
The religious oscillations, with the attendant persecutions of 
the reigns of Edward VI. — the bloody Mary — and Elizabeth, 



ADDRESS. 43 



prolonged the retardation of England's commercial import- 
ance. It was further delayed by the solicitude with which 
Henry VII. coveted a Spanish alliance for his dubious line ; 
by the marriage of Henry VIII. with the aunt of Charles Y. ; 
by the union of Philip II., the son of Charles, with Queen 
Mary, on whose death the Spanish potentate promptly ten- 
dered his hand to Queen Elizabeth, without experiencing an 
equally prompt repulse. 

Thus the domestic relations of the Tudor family to the sov- 
ereigns of Spain, — the aspirations of the founders of the line 
for continental influence — and the internal condition of their 
country, social, political and religious, — all concurred in clos- 
ing for more than a century the portals of America to Eng- 
lish adventurers. But a wonderful change was gradually 
introduced by the stirring incidents and novel interests of the 
reign of Elizabeth. In heart, she remained of the old religion 
of her father, accepting the most controverted tenets of the 
rejected creed, but regarding her own ecclesiastical supremacy 
as the most important article of the true faith. 

The throne of Elizabeth was insecure. It was not con- 
firmed till the execution of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of 
Scots, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, thirty years 
after her accession. The legitimacy of Elizabeth had been 
solemnly denied by her tyrannical father. This denial had 
been corroborated by Act of Parliament — by the sign-manual 
of her half-brother, Edward YI.— and by the formal legiti- 
matization of her elder half-sister. Queen Mary. This decis- 
ion would, perhaps, be sustained by the strict rules of law and 
morals. Mary of Scotland was apparently the true lineal 
inheritor of the English Crown ; and her claims, if they had 
been sustained by her native kingdom, would have been 
pressed by her ambitious kinsmen, the Guises, and might have 
been maintained by the arms of France, as they were asserted 
by the intrigues and the navies of Spain. Elizabeth was thus 



44 ADDRESS. 



compelled by her position to espouse the Protestant cause, to 
identify herself with the Protestant movement, and to become 
the champion of Protestantism against that communion, which 
repudiated her title to the throne, and in concert with one or 
other of the great Catholic powers, endeavored by intrigue, 
violence, and commination, to subvert her authority, to 
alienate her subjects, to provoke rebellion, to invite her assas- 
sination, or to crush her by open hostilities. Thus was she 
thrown upon her people for support, and nobly did they 
respond to her confidence. Thus was she obliged to con- 
ciliate their good will, and to cherish their resources, by the 
diligent cultivation of their national sentiments and institu- 
tions, of their energies, their capacities, their industry, and 
their commerce. All this she did with unwavering firmness 
and wonderful sagacity. Much of the success may have been 
due to the political intelligence of her prudent ministers, but 
the spirit, the equability, and the grandeur of her rule, may 
be safely ascribed to her own regal mind and capacious intel- 
lect. The necessities which imposed upon her the task of 
nursing at home the sources of present security and independ- 
ence, urged her to seek, foster, and create new elements of 
power abroad. Hence, she encouraged the Protestant revolu- 
tion throughout Europe — fanning the flame in Germany, and 
sending her troops and commanders to uphold it by arms in 
' the distracted realm of Scotland, in the revolted provinces of 
the Netherlands, and amongst the Huguenots in the wars of 
the League in France. Hence, she appeared as the ally of 
John Knox and the Regent Murray; of William of Orange 
and his son, Maurice ; of Conde, Coligny, and Henry of 
Navarre. Hence, too, she readily connived at, authorized, or 
participated in, the semi-piratical enterprises of her courtiers 
and captains against the marine and the possessions of the 
overwhelmiug despotism of Spain. 

In these military and naval schools were formed the daring 



ADDRESS. 45 



and versatile adventurers, who humbled the pride of Philip, 
and crippled the power of the Spanish Crown— who carried 
the English flag into all seas, and introduced the seeds of 
English freedom and polity into Virginia. 

In defending her throne, and asserting the independence 
of her kingdom, the truly national policy of Elizabeth extin- 
guished forever the pretensions of the Austrian rulers of 
Spain to universal empire. The same measures which 
achieved this protection of the civil and religious liberties 
of Europe, simultaneously developed with amazing rapidity 
the intelligence, cultivation, and prosperity of the English. 
We can scarcely appreciate the immensity and the variety of 
the impulses then communicated to England, to free institu- 
tions and to civilization, without patiently contemplating the 
host of stars, of all degrees of brilliancy and of all magni- 
tudes, which, in isolated and unapproached splendor, or clus- 
tered together in gUttering constellations, illumined with their 
blended radiance the skies of the Elizabethan age. On the 
muster roll of the Immortals were inscribed, during that half 
century, English names, which still stir the blood like the 
sound of a clarion, echoing with ever-augmented reverbera- 
tions over the earth, and marking the rise and fall of states; 
the revolutions of religion, polity, science, and philosophy; 
the bloom of literature ; the conquests of commerce, and the 
triumphs of the land and of the sea. This roll of glory is too 
voluminous for present exhibition; but, long as it is, each 
separate name is the symbol of achievements, which alone 
merited the assiduous labors of an age. 

The circumstances of the time co-operated with the delibe- 
rate efforts of Elizabeth. The destruction of the old feudal 
barons in the Wars of the Roses, (St. Alban's, and Towton, 
and Barnet, and Tewkesbury,) and by the more fatal exac- 
tions of Henry VII. — the perturbations of landed wealth 
consequent on the dissolution of the monasteries — and the 



46 ADDRESS. 



gradual abrogation of serfdom, bj no act of legislature or 
monarch, but by the changes of private interest — these sweep- 
ing mutations had entirely revolutionized the constitution of 
society, and altered the character of all social arrangements. 
A new nobility had sprung up. An industrious middle class 
had arisen, and been aided in the rapid accumulation of 
wealth and influence by the long civil strife and commercial 
disturbances in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Neth- 
erlands. The occupations of the people were altered. Lands 
were enclosed for pasturage. Commerce and manufactures 
started into life. Towns were enlarged and built. The re- 
sources of the nation were multiplied, and capital was contin- 
ually re-duplicated. But large bodies of the people were 
reduced by the sudden revulsion to pauperism and mendi- 
cancy. The ancient nobility and gentry, who had derived 
their social and political preponderance from their territorial 
possessions, found themselves outstripped in wealth and power 
by those who fattened on the rising riches of industry, specu- 
lation, and trade. The sentiment put by Shakespeare in the 
mouth of Hamlet, was familiar in that day to the experience 
and regrets of ^' the good old gentlemen of England ; '^ and 
is commemorated in such contemporaneous ballads as ^'Time's 
Alteration, and " The Old and Young Courtier." ^' The age 
is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near 
the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." 

A rapid social fermentation was then in progress, changing 
the pursuits of men, and throwing whole classes of the Eng- 
lish people out of the ancient routine of life and employment. 
These classes were peculiarly the laboring population, the 
idlers by profession, and the gentry and nobility of reduced 
or unsettled fortunes. Thus were simultaneously supplied 
and animated the hands to execute, and the intelligence to 
contrive and direct novel and arduous adventures. The diffi- 
culty and uncertainty of support at home actuated the rank 



ADDRESS. 47 



and file of these adventurers. The prospect of sudden gain 
and eminent renown inspired their leaders. Hence, when 
undeclared or proclaimed hostilities with Spain exposed the 
Spanish galleons, and colonies, and coasts to the private or 
public warfare of the English marine, and threw open to 
English assault or occupation the colonial regions of the 
world, united under one sceptre bj Philip's acquisition of 
Portugal, the moral and material instruments were already 
prepared to take advantage of this conjuncture. In availing 
themselves of the tempting opportunities of that great crisis, 
the English rovers, the Drakes, and Hawkinses, and Fro- 
bishers, and Raleighs, and Grenvilles, and Lanes, easily be- 
guiled themselves in regard to the complicated motives by 
which their enterprises were impelled. Selfish aims were the 
instruments by which the beneficent designs of Providence 
were accomplished. The desire of private emolument was 
combined with and dignified by higher and more generous 
purposes. Every success obtained at the expense of the 
grasping despotism of Spain was an efi'ectual blow struck for 
the security of the English throne — for the assertion and 
propagation of the Protestant religion — for the defence and 
enfranchisement of the nations — and for the privilege of un- 
trammelled thought and action, and of expanding intelligence. 
Happy is the age when personal interests are thus identified 
with the processes of national grandeur, and with the advanc- 
ing destinies of humanity ! Fortunate, indeed, were the days 
of ''Good Queen Bess,'' when this union took place for the 
exaltation of " Merrie England," and the difi'usion of the 
Anglo-Saxon race ! With instinctive and prophetic felicity 
did the maiden queen bestow her own highly-prized appella- 
tion of Virginia on the favored land where the English first 
obtained seizin of America ! At that moment of time, on 
that distant spot, and by that act of occupation, marked for- 
ever by the restoration of Jamestown, all the lines of English 



48 ADDRESS. 



progress, all the currents of English freedom, all the promises 
of English greatness, all the tendencies of augmenting civili- 
zation, were represented, concorporated, and assured. 

In estimating the social agitation during the reigns of 
Elizabeth and her successor, which has been indicated as one 
of the main incentives to colonial adventure, and as one of 
the chief agencies in commercial expansion, reference must 
be made to the financial condition of those times. Influences, 
apparently humble in their nature, and obscure in their ac- 
tion, but which are universal in their play, are more perma- 
nently and more potently operative than impulses of more 
splendid aspect. It was during these years, the close of the 
16th and the commencement of the 17th century, that the 
prices of all productions, and of the agents of production, 
were rapidly rising in consequence of the augmentation of the 
precious metals by the copious supplies from the American 
mines. Nearly a century elapsed after the discovery of the 
Western World, before the gold and silver of Mexico and 
Peru occasioned any general derangement in values, or in the 
relations of society. Towards the conclusion of that period 
the financial disturbance generated large and rapid fortunes — 
embarrassed monarchs and governments, altering their rela- 
tions to their subjects — disorganized the public exchequer — 
aggravated the necessities of the poor — heightened the cu- 
pidity of the rich — diminished the comparative ease of the 
ancient gentry — increased the luxury and ostentation of 
wealth — and inflamed the speculations of daring adventurers. 
To this cause must in part be attributed the contemporaneous 
celebrity of the Rosicrucians, the continued encouragement 
given to the pursuits of alchemy, in which Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert sufi"crcd himself to be involved — the impatient avidity 
with which gold was demanded from all newly-discovered 
lands — the perseverance with which strange routes to the 
East Indies were explored — by Archangel — by the North 



ADDRESS. 49 



"West passage — through Muscovy, Persia, Egypt — along the 
shores of North America — and in the interior of North Caro- 
lina and Virginia. To the same impulse we must also par- 
tially ascribe the restless activity with which the English 
endeavored to multiply alliances with strange nations, and the 
establishment of great mercantile associations — the Russia — 
the Turkey — the East India — the Virginia — the London — 
and the Plymouth Companies. 

The religious dissensions in England have not been enu- 
merated among the direct influences determining English 
colonization in America. The general movement communi- 
cated by the Reformation, and the spirit impressed by it on 
the whole series of colonial transactions, are sufficiently evi- 
dent, and have been frequently alluded to. These discords 
tended to multiply the colonies after one had been estab- 
lished ; they increased emigration from abroad, and aug- 
mented the colonial population; they determined the location 
of different bodies of exiles; and they exasperated into a 
passionate enthusiasm the attachment of the colonists to civil 
and religious liberty ; but they did not, in any considerable 
degree, encourage the original fervor of colonization. The 
chief influence of a religious character, which excited the 
early English efforts, was derived from no sectarian quarrels 
at home, but from the pervading spirit of the Reformation, as 
embodied in the national resistance to the spiritual and politi- 
cal domination of Spain. The main significance of the occu- 
pation of the North American shores by the English must, 
therefore, be sought from the early Virginia colony, and not 
from the sectional or sectarian import of the later Puritan set- 
tlements in New England, the Catholic province of Maryland,, 
the Huguenot emigrants in South Carolina, or the Quaker 
establishments in Pennsylvania. Each of these Plantations, 
and of the States which have issued from them, possesses its 
6 



50 ADDRESS. 



own merits and its own distinctive claims to respectful con- 
sideration. They have their own honor, as they had their 
several missions, which I would rather enhance than tarnish. 
Each has co-operated, in its own mode, and in its own good 
time, in preparing, effectuating and evolving the system of the 
American Confederation. But the inauguration of the mighty 
drama was due, not to them, nor to the influences which dis- 
tinguished them from each other, but to the leader of the 
forlorn hope of English colonization in America — the first 
English settlement at Jamestown. The virtue of the plant is 
in the seed. The circulation proceeds from the root to all the 
umbrageous and fruit-bearing branches. The historical sig- 
nificance of the American Union must, consequently, be re- 
ferred to the Virginia colony. This conclusion is corroborated 
by observing how the spirit and progress of the Old Dominion, 
the character of the Revolution, and the genius of the United 
States, have all been affected by the fact that Virginia was 
founded by the gallant gentlemen of England, and was re- 
plenished with her best blood, instead of proceeding from 
religious sectaries, and perpetuating in her veins the venom 
of theological discord and polemical rancor. 

The large and solemn purport of the Virginia Colony, and 
its efficacy in promoting the liberty, intelligence and civiliza- 
tion of humanity, arose from that very procrastination of 
English maritime adventure, which, at first view, provokes 
both surprise and regret. Had England engaged in colonial 
conquests concurrently with Portugal, or Spain, or France, 
she would have transplanted to these Hesperian shores the 
crumbling institutions of an expiring social system, the ascend- 
ancy of the Roman Catholic creed, and the despotic rule of 
the Tudor line. In consequence of the delay, the first fruits 
of the approaching regeneration of England were naturalized 
here; while the superannuated trunk, from which the vigorous 



ADDRESS. 51 



offshoot had been taken, was left in its native soil to undergo 
the painful process of decay and regeneration. The vanguard 
of English intelligence and freedom erected the standard of 
liberty and hope on the bays of Roanoke and the banks of the 
Powhatan. Not merely were the learning, and science, and 
literature, and practical wisdom, and active energy of the 
brilliant age of Elizabeth domiciliated here by the opportune 
establishment of the Virginia Colony, but the glowing promise' 
of the future, in that glorious dawn of English splendor, so 
soon to be involved in tumult and clouds at home, was con- 
veyed with loftier auspices, and ampler ulterior capabilities of 
realization, to the infant offspring of England beyond the At- 
lantic flood. In that day, Pandora's box had been delivered 
into the hands of Albion. It had been opened with the im- 
patience characteristic of nations, as of individuals. The 
liberated troop of evils and discords flew abroad over the 
land, and incited long and acrimonious dissension, and civil 
war. The undying hope of humanity that remained behind, 
floated over the waters with the adventurers of the Virginia 
Company, rested on the foundation-stone of resurgent James- 
town, and may still cheer the ominous apprehensions of the 
present generation. 

The age of Elizabeth was gilded with the genial light of 
the elder time. The illumination of former days shed a softer 
glory over the reign of the Maiden Queen than had belonged 
to those feudal centuries whence the light had been transmit- 
ted, or had shone upon any former period since the dreamy 
infancy of ancient Greece. Trie lingering sunset of chivalry 
clothed the court and camp of Elizabeth with a gentler efflu- 
ence than attended its meridian; and, as it sunk in the distant 
West, the long line of undulating glory, which stretched across 
the Atlantic from England to America, marked the pathway 
of empire reaching westward to its resting-place. It was an 



52 ADDRESS. 



exhilarating omen that the colonization of Virginia was un- 
dertaken and achieved, while 

Life's morning radiance had not left the hills, 
Iler dew was on the flowers. 

The influences of childhood, unnoted as they may be, ac- 
company us through life, and unconsciously mould the charac- 
ter and shape the destiny. It must be, as it has been, a 
cherished recollection of Virginians, and an active incentive 
to patriotic achievement, that the colony whence they have 
sprung was founded by a race of heroes, who united to their 
martial prowess and practical prudence, the courtly graces of 
knighthood, the noble sentiments of chivalry, and the early 
bloom of literary and scientific culture. It is a proud reflec- 
tion, that Virginia might appropriately assume as her crest 
the Red Crosse Knight of Spenser's Faerie Queene, to indi- 
cate the time, the mode, the circumstances, and the signifi- 
cance of her original establishment. For the same reason, 
she might herself be fitly blazoned under the symbol of Una 
and her lamb : 

The lovely ladie rode him faire beside. 

These allusions to the most attractive portion of Spenser's 
enchanting poem suggest a brief notice of the special religious 
function of the Enghsh Colonies of America in the general 
history of the world. The First Book of the Faerie Queene, 
to which reference is made, represents the machinations of 
Duessa, or the Papacy against Fidessa, or the Reformed 
Church ; and illustrates the final triumph of Una, or Holi- 
ness. In England, and throughout Europe, the ideal antici- 
pations of Spenser were frustrated or impaired by long con- 
tinued religious discords,, and by foreign and domestic wars 



ADDRESS. 5^^ 



propagated by religion, or waged in its name. The contem- 
plated issue has scarcely been attained even yet. If the for- 
tunes of religion, or the prospects of toleration, had been 
abandoned entirely to the perils of this long and embittered 
strife, they might still be endangered, or uncertain. The 
result was definitely and efifectually attained, so far as it was 
attained, only by the favoring necessities and accidents which 
encompassed the Eoglish settlements in America. There 
alone did Protestantism become dominant without a rival or 
domestic adversary. Thence alone could proceed the com- 
plete and unembarrassed manifestation of Protestant tenden- 
cies in spiritual, political and social afi'airs. It was by their 
example, and countenance, and aid, and provocation, that the 
Catholic dominion of Spain and France on this Continent was 
first restricted — then diminished; and, at last, nearly oblite- 
rated. Moreover, the English establishments in America, 
with the commerce and wealth and naval superiority engen- 
dered by them, gave the Protestant party in Europe an equi- 
ponderance with the Catholic, and ultimately a decided 
political predominance. This balance of the two great forces 
of modern history was not merely the generating cause of the 
principal wars in Europe down to the French Revolution, but 
it was the mainspring of the movements of the modern world, 
and the chief impulse to the rapid development of the ener- 
gies and resources of modern civilization. The principal 
stages of this progress are marked in the historical geography 
of America by the subjugation of Jamaica — the re-occupation 
of Nova Scotia, and seizure of the adjacent islands — the con- 
quest of Canada — the reduction of the Northwest by Virginia; 
the purchase of Louisiana — the acquisition of Florida, and the 
independence of the Spanish Provinces in North and South 
America. These territorial changes were nearly all concur- 
rent with, and consequent upon, the" great wars in Europe. 
But * peace hath her victories as well as war.' These losses 



54 ADDRESS. 



of the Catholic powers represented larger acquisitions of wealth 
and influence, gained at their expense by the Anglo-Saxon 
race, in the aggrandisement of their commerce, manufactures, 
industry, activity, prosperity and intelligence. 

This long struggle was atttended with universal benefit to 
humanity. Had Catholicism ruled with supreme dominion 
over the earth, coincidently with the universal empire of Spain, 
or France, or Austria, intelligence must have become stagnant 
or retrograde — enterprise must have been arrested — progress 
been paralyzed and freedom extinguished. From this fate the 
world was preserved by the sturdy maintenance of Protestant- 
ism — by the sudden augmentation of English prestige and 
power — by the various blows inflicted by England on Spain — 
and by Marlborough's victories over the armies of Louis XIV. 
Blenheim, and Ramilies, and Oudenarde, and Malplaquet se- 
cured the fortunes of Protestantism and liberal institutions 
when they were still trembling in the balance. The energies, 
and resources, and policy which triumphed on these splendid 
battle-fields had been largely due to the maritime ascendancy 
of England, created in the first instance, and expanded after- 
wards by its colonial possessions in America. 

As the long series of dependent eflUcts is involved in the 
ultimate cause; as both blossom and fruit are potentially, if 
not actually, contained in the nascent germ ; no injustice is 
done to later co-agents, no exaggeration of the truth produced, 
by regarding the Virginia Colony as the seminal principle 
whence proceeded the renovated order of the ages, and the 
new progeny commissioned by Heaven. 

Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur ordo. 
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; 
Jam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto. 

When I regard the aspects and the evolutions of the Past; 
the abundant achicveuicnt of the Present, embodied in this 



APPENDIX. 55 



great Confederacy; — when I contemplate the uncertain but 
still exhilarating promises of the Future, I cannot deem my- 
self beguiled by the attractions of a most attractive subject 
into any undue estimation of the significance of the first suc- 
cessful attempt at English colonization in America. I have 
only clothed with words the revelations of accomplished his- 
tory, while indulging, from the scene of Jamestown, these 

Sweet meditations, the still overflow 
Of present happiness, while future years 
Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams, 
No few of which have since been realized; 
And some remain, hopes for our future life. 

The definite establishment of the Virginia Colony furnished 
the elevated point of view whence the eye swept round the 
wide horizon of modern history. The longer and the more 
diligently the progress of humanity- is contemplated from this 
lone watch-tower of time, the grander and the more impressive 
appears the prospect, and the more crowded becomes the phan- 
tasmagoria with the portentous shapes of struggling creeds, 
embattled systems, warring monarchs, rising and declining 
empires, while, in the far distance, continues to arise from the 
dust, and din, and confusion of the spectral turmoil, like the 
immortal spirit ascending from the grave, the enlarging and 
glorified divinity of America. 

The rapid and inadequate survey of the antecedent and con- 
temporaneous events and tendencies which received their ful- 
fillment, immediate or prospective, in the American Colonies 
of England, has necessarily left the modes of operation unde- 
tailed, and numerous phenomena altogether unnoticed. Yet 
all the living movements of Europe have been seen to con- 
tribute, voluntarily or involuntarily, the choice rewards of 
their effort as gems to sparkle in the coronet of the infant 
Virginia. The chart of modern civilization clearly reveals the 
confluence of all the main channels of progress in the Vir- 



56 APPENDIX. 



ginia Colony. If the point of -convergence appear trivial or 
obscure, this can only be occasioned by the infirmity of the 
human mind, which disables it from appreciating consequences 
in their inception — from anticipating results before 'the dust 
groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together' — or 
from interpreting 

those blind motions of the Spring 
That show the year is turned. 

If the prophetic "vision and the faculty divine" be wisely 
denied to man, history furnishes the necromantic art which 
can evoke from the shades the actors and the actions of the 
past, and elicit from them oracles refused to the contempora- 
neous generations. There are certain vases which appear dull 
and opaque in the ordinary light of day, but over whose sur- 
face spread images, grotesque, or beautiful, or suggestive, 
when illuminated from within. Similar to these are the inci- 
dents, and forms, and fashions of past centuries. They pre- 
serve impressions which are only rendered legible by the inner 
light supplied by a later time. If 

the meanest flower that blows can give 



Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears, 

is it not reasonable to suppose that historical transactions, of 
humble original pretensions, but growing within our know- 
ledge by a secret life into mighty forms, may have possessed 
from the beginning a fullness of meaning and predestined 
vitality, unsuspected at the period of their occurrence, and 
not fathomable till the issues of time approximate to their 
perfection ? 

Did these views require further corroboration than the seal 
of reality, which is impressed upon them, that evidence would 
be abundantly supplied by the sequel to the inquiry which 
has been hazarded. Every great mutation in the subsequent 



ADDRESS. 67 



phases of Europe has been connected, by a reciprocating 
movement, with the fortunes of the American Colonies; and 
the reaction of America upon Europe has increased with the 
years till the machinery of the world is set in motion, and its 
population employed and supported mainly by the products 
of the Southern States. The investigation into the details of 
this extensive change is wider even than that which has been 
so imperfectly prosecuted. It demands other occasions and 
other expositors. But, to justify the statement advanced, it 
may be noted that the growth and population of Virginia and 
her sister colonies were favored by the convulsions of Ger- 
many and the whole continent during the Thirty Years* 
War — by the jealousies of Spain and France — and by the 
domestic transmutation of the latter country untJer the guid- 
ance of Richelieu — that the English Navigation Acts, which 
so powerfully affected the mercantile growth of England and 
the internal development of the American Colonies, and which 
invited and inaugurated the American Revolution, were passed 
during the ascendancy of Cromwell and under the Restoration 
of Charles II., in a spirit of hostility against the Dutch — that 
the Great Rebellion in England, the discords under Charles II. 
and James II. — the Revolution of 1688 — the Dutch wars, 
and the vast schemes of Louis XCV.— the perils of the Han- 
overian succession, and the repeated menaces of Jacobite in- 
surrection — withdrew scrutiny from the English colonies, and 
favored the uninterrupted development of the native energy 
of self-government. During the great wars of the eighteenth 
century, American interests were continually involved, and 
became the predominant consideration in the Seven Years' 
War, so far as France and England were concerned. The 
treaties of Utrecht, Aix-la-Chapelle and Paris gave increasing 
prominence to American affairs. By the terms of the last 
peace, France was excluded from the Western continent. 
Out of the war preceding this peace, grew the claim of Eng- 



58 ADDRESS. 



land to American revenue, or, at least, to the right of taxing 
America. Both demands were repudiated by the Colonies. 
From this resistance sprang the American Revolution and 
American independence — kindled and sustained by the in- 
crease of population, energy, wealth, and territory, resulting 
from the long European wars of the century. The contro- 
versies, which kindled and accompanied the war of American 
Independence, were co-ordinate with the memorable struggle 
of the Kockingbam party in England for the maintenance of 
the English franchises. Burke, and his allies, avowed that 
English freedom was staked on the event of the American 
Revolution. '^ We are convinced," says Burke, in the bold 
address to the king; "we are convinced, beyond a doubt, 
that a system of dependence, which leaves no security to 
the people for any part of their freedom in their own hands, 
cannot be established in any inferior member of the British 
Empire, without consequentially destroying the freedom of 
that very body, in favor of whose boundless pretensions 
such a scheme is adopted." * * * a W^hat, gracious 
sovereign, is the empire of America to us, or the empire of 
the world, if we lose our own liberties? We deprecate this 
last of evils. We deprecate the effect of the doctrines, which 
must support and countenance the government over conquered 
Englishmen." 

The remembrance of mortifying disasters, and of the recent 
loss of their vast American possessions, inflamed the jealousy 
of the French, and stimulated equally the secret encourage- 
ment and the open assistance extended by France to the 
American patriots in their revolt against English exaction. 
The companions of La Fayette, and Rochambeau, and D'Es- 
taing, zealously conveyed to France the opinions and the 
policy which they had aided in rendering triumphant on this 
side of the Atlantic. Their new enthusiasm for liberty helped 
to precipitate the French Revolution. Thus, even from this 



ADDRESS. 59 

hasty sketch, it appears that the progress of America had a 
direct effect on the fortunes of Europe, and that every stage 
in the destinies of Europe was closely implicated with the 
growth, development, prosperity and influence of the English 
colonies. 

To secure unity of view, all these great changes, antecedent 
or subsequent to the first efforts of English colonization, have 
been regarded from the central position afforded by the resto. 
ration of Jamestown. To this point converged all previous 
tendencies, and from it radiated those diverse potencies which 
encouraged or absorbed the more recent currents of human 
progress. The Virginia Colony thus reflects the summation 
or anticipation of modern advancement. It is the magic 
mirror which revives the Past, explains the Present, and re- 
veals the hopes, if not the promises, of the Future. 

But the end is not yet. The movement originally commu- 
nicated to the heavenly bodies not only rolled them at the 
first along their mighty orbits, but attended and attends them 
throughout the millennial periods of their existence, deter- 
mining their habitual relations to each other, and all the 
modifications of the material universe. Complicated and in- 
calculable as may be the varied coiTsequehces of the original 
impulse, the dependence of the effects is evident and unmis- 
takable. Similarly, any movement impressed upon the social 
masses of the world, which in their oscillating revolutions 
effectuate the historical progress of humanity, operates through 
all time in regulating and generating the subsequent evolu- 
tions of the race. No mechanical power is inactive in the 
cosmical system — no force is squandered in the moral uni- 
verse. The magnitude of the influence to be expected from 
any novel phenomenon in the political progress of the world 
may be estimated from the amount of previous preparation, 
and will be evinced by the concentration of forces involved in 



60 ADDRESS. 



its production and accomplished development. From the uni- 
versality of this law it may be confidently proclaimed that 
Virginia, and the later stars of the American constellation, 
announced a nobler and loftier destiny than was ever vouch- 
safed to any other community. 

All the main lines of earlier progress constitute the heralds 
and the servitors of Virginia. Her nativity was the signal 
for the multiplication of similar settlements on the coasts 
secured to England by her establishment. The conjoined de- 
velopment and confederation of all of these — aided immensely 
by the special and direct action and generosity of Virginia 
herself — have created a vast republic, transcending in re- 
sources and capabilities the universal empires of an earlier 
time. Since the settlement of the First Colony, the influence 
of these commonwealths on the ancient monarchies of Europe 
has been immediate — powerful — and ever-expanding. In our 
own days, Virginia and her progeny have assumed, in their 
union and by their union, the position of one of the chief 
powers of the earth. This has been done in the infancy of 
the nation. But larger than all past accomplishment is the 
promise of prospective and rapid grandeur. While thus grow- 
ing in strength, and resotirces, and population, and power; 
and, by the very process of increase, a home has been reared 
in the West for the free ; an asylum oflfered for the oppressed 
of all nations, climes, tongues, and creeds; and the wealth, 
and invention, and intelligence, and culture of the whole 
world have been naturalized and multiplied here. ''If they 
do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the 
dry?" 

By the long series of great events which has generated the 
results around us — by the golden promise of the dawn — by 
the dazzling performance of the early day — are we not invited 
to indulge fair auguries of the meridian splendor ? In the 



ADDRESS. 61 



midst of the doubts and alarms, which for the time encircle 
us with almost impenetrable mists, are we not still compelled 
to recognize "an increasing purpose;" 

And through thick veils to apprehend 
A labor working to an end. 

The destiny of Rome seems to be renewed in the only other 
republic that ever approximated to the power, enterprise, and 
extent of the Koman dominion. It is apparently designed by 
Providence that the United States should attract, absorb, in- 
corporate, and consubstantiate, as Kome did in antiquity, all 
the improvable races of mankind- — all the tendencies of hu- 
man progress — all the mature elements of modern civiliza- 
tion — and should sublimate the all-embracing concretion into 
the fairest fruit of time. All this, though the task of centu- 
ries, and the conjoint achievement of the federated States, of 
both European and American advancement, and of all terres- 
trial and celestial influences, will be regarded in long-distant 
years, when present passions have expired and present sys- 
tems have vanished, as the abundant fruitage of the Virginia 
Colony. 

But to realize these bright auguries, the scheme of destiny 
must not be thwarted by the jealousies and reckless improvi- 
dence of men. Nations have their fates in their own hands, 
as well as individuals, and they may make or mar their for- 
tunes. The tables of the Divine law may be dashed into 
fragments, in consequence of the fury of a stiff-necked and 
rebellious people, and a golden calf, the abomination of Egypt, 
set up for worship in their stead, by the very children of the 
promise. The populations to whom the triumphant career is 
announced by the whole tenor of the past, may dissipate the 
vision in the clouds by the tempests of civil discord, evoked 
from the dark caverns of the human heart, where they are 
with difficulty kept in subjection. But, if lofty destinies are 
7 



62 ADDRESS. 



rejected, and nations are torn asunder, and populations are 
extirpated, and societies are extinguished by foreign war, or 
domestic dissension, or moral decay, the purpose of Provi- 
dence moves on to its sure accomplishment, waiting only for a 
more propitious time, and seeking or creating more docile and 
intelligent instruments. 

It is a mighty and unfathomable destiny which has been 
entrusted to the American people; and with the solemnity, 
and caution, and patience, and unfailing resolution, which 
such a destiny demands, they should strive for its accomplish- 
ment — discarding alike the dictates of anger, the suggestions 
of prejudice, and the temptations of pecuniary interest. But 
whatever issue impends — whether our sun at its appointed 
meridian shall look down in splendor, through the unclouded 
blue on a happy and united continent, smiling in plenteous- 
ness, and crowned with virtue ; or shall conceal his face in 
angry gloom from a divided, and shattered, and warring 
people— the past is secured beyond the reach of casualty. 
The Virginia Colony furnished the exemplar and initiation of 
the English colonial system — she led the procession of modern 
freedom — she laid the foundation stone of the great edifice 
into which were aggregated the numerous members of the 
American republic — she opened the oceans to the commerce 
of England, and to the mercantile enterprise of the world. 
She inaugurated, too, the struggle which preserved the liber- 
ties of England and conquered those of America; and she 
taught a lesson to the world, which future ages will yet 
realize, even if the glory of completing what she so well 
began, should be forfeited by her and her companions in trial 
and in fame. 

In closing this tribute to the services conferred by Vir- 
ginia upon humanity, in consequence of the indissoluble con- 
nection of American with European history, may I be per- 
mitted to link once more the distinctions of the daughter 



ADDRESS. 



63 



with the honors of the mother-land, by returning again to 
the heights which overlook the submerged site of Jamestown, 
and by applying to the Virginia Colony, in its infancy and in 
its progress, in the present and prospective promise of the 
Old Dominion, the eulogy and prayer pronounced over his 
native country by the laureate of England : 

Of old sat Freedom on the heights, 
The thunders breaking at her feet; 

Above her shook the starry lights- 
She heard the torrents meet. 

"Within her place she did rejoice, 
Self gathered in her prophet-mind; 

But fragments of her mighty voice 
Came rolling on the "wind. 

Then stept she down through town and field 

To mingle with the human race, 
And part by part to men revealed 

The fullness of her face— 



Her open eyes desire the truth. 

The wisdom of a thousand years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 

Keep dry their light from tears; 

That her fair form may stand and shine. 

Make bright our days and light our dreams, 

Turning to scorn with lips divine 
The falsehood of extremes ! 



/ . ^ 



THE 



i^irgittia pisiorical |leprter: 



V^ CONDUCTED BY THE 



v^ 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 



VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



VOL. II— PART I. 



RICHMOND: 

OHAS. H. WYNNE, PRINTER, 94 MAIN STREET. 
1860. 






LBFe '10 



